Unsuspected

by Joshua Winters

  She cursed as she came upon another downed power line, she had skipped the highway for the reported hundreds of upended cars but she had to go around power lines, risk going over live wires. She didn’t dare stop, paramedics where way too busy to check on the only person in a large flattened strip mall. Her DogCo had taken a direct hit and her employee was the only overnighter in the entire shopping center.

  Her fingers drew in tight around the wheel and her heart sped as she crossed the wires, but her execution by electrocution was put off for another day. Vicky came up to where she would have cross the highway. The overpass had held but there where families out of their cars underneath it, dozens of people shell shocked, women crying, men looking pissed, children injured. Some cars where shoved into the tiny crooks where the concrete hill met the overpass bridge, some had appeared to have been tossed off of it, and a few where so torn apart she couldn't make out what kind of car or truck they may be. She feared for the families, especially in those last ones, but she couldn’t do anything but drive through the maze of metallic and flesh destruction. There where smells of a war-zone here, ozone, oil burning, even the copper taste of blood and she hoped her store wasn’t part of it.

  She hadn’t needed to worry, there was nothing left of her building to burn. Almost nothing, out of the entire strip mall it was one of only two stores leveled. Across the parking lot Jen’s Jewels was also nothing more than rubble, but that store was tiny, the twister had increased in size within the lot and destroyed the entirety of her store and hotel. All that stood where the sturdy kennels poking through the twisted rubble of steel girders, metal roofing, and cinderblock. The RadioShack next to it had an exposed wall but was still standing.

  She pulled around front, dodging a shattered O from the marquee and pulled into a parking spot which was the overnighters usual choice. Her car was nowhere to be seen, possibly in the store itself but she couldn’t tell car from shelving units in that mess. Her heart seemed to still as she scanned the rubble for any signs of life, but not a wall stood, what chance did the poor young woman have?

  She jumped at a tap on her passenger’s window, outside stood a bloodied and bruised Heather, unrecognizable under her swollen face. Vicky opened the door and pulled her in, “Heather, oh my god, what, how?!”

  She was shaking hard, her voice barely above a whisper “All the dogs in the kennels are ok, but the ones in the suits, they're missing, three dogs gone.”

  “You need a hospital.” Vicky said putting her car back into drive. Impressed Heather had thought enough to keep count of the pets and their wellbeing, she feared shock might be distracting her from her own health.

  “But the dogs.”

  “I’ve notified Corporate,” as she spoke her assistant manager’s Camaro pulled into the lot, he had the actual store manager, the boss above Vicky herself, with him, “and everyone’s coming in to assist, but your arm looks broken.”

  Heather glanced down at her left arm with a grimace, crooked below the elbow with its wrist twisted and swollen, “Yeah I guess.”

  Chapter 15: The Closet

  Harry woke to something wet and warm sliding up his face, he realized it was his dog, her spit cooled by the moist night air. He sat up pushing her away, staring around in amazement at his survival. The closets walls had gone, disintegrated around him, his house was nothing but a few splintered sections of support beams, the upstairs, his room, the study, all gone. His mother's room still had a window surrounded by wooden supports, her bed was still in one piece, and her bookshelf, while bookless, still stood. Her giant flat screen and entertainment center, the living area, everything was gone, except the fridge which he noted was opened as if the twister had decided on a snack while it worked, and the toilet in the restroom that was once at the bottom of the stairs, though it looked to be spewing up brown water.

  He stood and walked out of the remains of his house with his dog at his heels, amazed that his back fence seemed to be as unharmed as he was, in awe at the devastation of not only his, but his neighbors' houses. He sucked in his breath, his thirteen year old neighbor was lying in the back lawn behind their house.

  Forgetting his disposition against people he rushed to the fence that stood between their yards which collapsed as he made to climb it. Bouncing back from the fall, he was atop the child, patting him on the face, but he was unresponsive, not breathing, he tried for a pulse, nothing. He put his hands on the kid’s chest to start compressions but cringed as he noted his right hand was missing three of his fingers, only the pinky and thumb remained, the other three shortened mashes of bloody meat around protruding bleach white bone.

  “My boy!” the child’s mother screamed from the still standing gate that lead to the front yard.

  “He’s not breathing!” Harry shouted, “He needs CPR, but” he held his hand up with his good one apologetically. The father pushed past his wife to get to the boy as Harry stood out of his way, he tried to resuscitate the boy, but after ten minutes Harry knew it was hopeless.

  Leaving the panicked parents behind he walked out of the backyard, over a mound of brick and wood debris that was their homes and into the street. Nothing stood, not a single house or tree for over a block and even further on in front of him, the impossible twister that would never hit his town had been a block wide and ran through the entirety of his neighborhood. There were bodies in the street, some of them with grieving family around them, some alone, and all he had was his dog. Where were his parents?

  Harry started towards the first lone body, keeping his wounded hand close to his chest, his shaken brown lab trotting right behind him. The least he could do is see if the ones without loved ones to care for them where still alive.

  Chapter 16: All Washed Up

  Trent dove into the chilly waist deep water, its temperature not stemmed by his tight wet suit, attempting to get to the inverted vehicle. It appeared to be some kind of car, one of the dozens that had been swept into the drainage ditches of the city by torrential rains that made south Texas so deadly, or thrown into it by the monster tornado that as far as he knew was still destroying his city. The water threatened to sweep him off his feet, but the taut line attached to the harness around his back, which ran back to land and around a wench on his truck, held in place and let out by his own partner, kept him secure so he could keep going without fear.

  So far the four cars they had found had been empty, he had tagged those cars and left them to be retrieved when the waters had let off. But as he attached his breathing mask once again and dove, he nearly gasped a gulp of water when his flashlight lit up a lively looking corpse floating in the space on the floor between the driver’s seat and the pedals. It was a middle aged man in a nice buttoned up shirt, clutching a purse in his hand. Trent used the car to pull himself back up to the surface, and gave his friend a thumb down, signaling a recovery effort of a body.

  He dove back down and through the open passenger side window, grabbing the corpse by the arm to get him to straighten so he could pull him out with ease, but the corpse was stiff with rigor, which would make it difficult to squeeze it out of its spot. Not able to get the handbag it held onto free he pulled the wooden corpse back towards the window and had to yank the man through in the odd crab like position he had frozen into.

  They rose out of the water, Trent still breathing through his scuba gear while dragging the stiff body through the rushing rapids as a kid might drag his inner tube ashore.

  Once ashore he removed and turned off his breathing gear, “Only person in the car,” he gasped, “rigors set in, though he doesn’t look quite 3 hours under that water.”

  “It’s the cold” his partner said, “I think. Ask the mortician, he’ll know what's what. This his bag? He queer?”

  Trent made a sour face at the use of the word queer, his field companions had no idea he was the fireman in the closet, “Doesn’t seem so, does he? Look how nice he’s dressed though, for a date I’d wager. The window had been forced open as if someone
had made to get out.”

  His partner looked around, “Well an hour ago that building over there would have the waterline near its roof,” he nodded to the ruins of a soaked building, “before you know, being leveled by the twister. Could be she swam for it.”

  Trent shook his head, “If she was on that when it got hit, there’s no real hope, she’d had better chances in the water.”

  The radio squealed, “Unit twelve has a code 10, and possible N,” dispatch came through, “we need the closest paramedics or fire units to Military and Gerald to wait for an ambulance detail.”

  The duo hopped in their rescue truck as an ambulance recovery unit stuffed the stiff corpse into a body bag. His partner reeled in the rest of his line with the trucks automatic wench while Trent grabbed up the microphone, “This is flood rescue three, condition?”

  “A police unit has found an unresponsive yet alive nude female that washed upon the shore of a ditch as it curved, he pulled her away from the water but says she seems to have suffered near drowning and blunt impact, as he described it. Bruises cover her body and she just came off from a light shade of blue.”

  The duo glanced at each other, “That’s just down the street, it’s the same damned ditch,” his partner said.

  “I know Fred,” he turned back to his radio, “Unit three on the way, do not bother with paramedics, we’ll stabilize and transport her, the city needs them elsewhere.”

  Chapter 17: The Old Man Home

  He gasped for air and coughed, rolling over on the carpeted floor. As he attempted to rise to kneel he conked his head on something hard, so he sat. Travis was alive, as impossible it seemed. His lungs where burning, his body ached, his chest was on fire, but he was alive.

  He remembered everything, his mind still so clear, he had taken his whole bottle of pills and he should be dead. Maybe… he was.

  He opened his eyes but found nothing other than darkness. Feeling around with clumsy hands on the carpeted floor he found it familiar, his home for the last few years of his life, the nursing home his loved ones had abandoned him to.

  “Holy fuck” he said, “Nurse!” he shouted, and noticed his voice echoed much too close. Reaching out he touched the wall, the walls where above him, around him, below him, everywhere. “The hell?”

  He tried to crawl and pierced his finger with glass, “Nurse!” he called, desperate, hadn’t he nearly died in his bathroom? Why wasn’t he still there? He smacked his lips, his mouth parched by the overdose that should have taken his life.

  Crouching Travis shuffled forward in a stoop, glass would litter the bottom of his purple slippers, a sacrifice he was willing to make. He wanted to find a hole, a way out, but only found about four feet of space, bumping his shaking achy fingers into a dead end every few inches, a cave of walls. Something bad had happened to his home. Had he survived his overdose only to end up buried under rubble, would his life end here?

  He sat and breathed in deep, the smell of concrete and plaster mixed with a cool rainy night air. Someone would rescue him, he had a second chance to life so all he had to do was wait and enjoy the clarity of his thoughts.

  Chapter 18: Help is on the way.

  Behind them IHOP, saved the tornado, threw miles of smoke and feet flame into the air as it burned from the wreck that had sat in its kitchen and the propane gas that fed it’s stove, but they knew that place was victimless, save for the possible charred corpse of the Taxi’s driver and the one worker crushed by the incident. With the heart of the storm miles from them, leaving behind purple orange morning skies and light fog, they dug through demolished apartments and store fronts, multi-storied buildings leveled, in hopes to find any survivors.

  So far all they had found where pieces of people, legs, arms, hands, mashed bodies, shards of skull, an eyeball, Gil could count the ways this early morning would horrify him for the rest of his life, his life which might be made better if he could just find one whole person who could be saved.

  He and Ben lifted up a large section of wall plaster and found a whole person as he had wished, a young twenty something old man with Irish red hair, matching sideburns, and an unshaven face, but his open stare was one of death. That’s when they noticed his arms, folded in front of him, moving.

  They rolled him over and off an infant, only weeks old. The infant was beaten and bloodied, but it moved, it cawed a mock sound of crying, as if it had lost its air in the fall from unknown heights. Gil picked it up as he held Ben’s worried, stare, “I have a baby!” he turned and shouted, “And he’s hurt bad. If anyone has a car, we need immediate transportation to a near hospital!”

  The lady employee from the IHOP, the one who had witnessed the death of her friend not an hour ago, ran up the rubble to them, “My cars far away enough behind the store to get to safely, I’ll drive you as fast as we can to Santa Rosa, I don’t think the storm headed in its direction.”

  Gil nodded, and turned to Ben, his eyes sparkling with purpose “I’ll go with the child, stay here and help whoever else you might fine.”

  Ben grimaced, his bloodshot eyes dark with exhaustion and horror, but he nodded all the same as he watched his lover take the baby and descend the pile of buildings.

  Chapter 19: Game Over

  Claudia’s throat was bitter acid, while her friends combed mountains of destroyed buildings she and some old man from the restaurant where on vehicles. For the past twenty minutes he had been pointing out bodies, and she’d be stuck dragging them out, checking them for life, and then lining them up on the curb, or where she supposed the curb should have been in spots where debris impact had ripped up the concrete itself.

  “Another one!” the man who was overweight and at least sixty, shouted with what little voice he had left to shout with, still puffing around the kind of cigarette which had permanently stolen it.

  Chocking back stomach fluids she reached a bus, which looked as if it had been sand blasted, its once metallic sheen and colorful logo’s gone, every window shattered, “I think we’ll have more than one here,” he mumbled as she approached. She reached the body of a woman about as old as the man who stood near her with his hand over his mouth in disgust, “just awful.”

  Nodding she checked the woman’s throat, no pulse, no breathing. She ignored the body and walked around the side of the bus which was really the bottom. Using the wheels too heavy for her to move and pressing her feet against the joints of the undercarriage, she hoisted herself up and over with the swing of her other leg, thanking the god of rainbow children she dressed like a tomboy and wasn’t giving this old helper of hers a show in some flashy skirt.

  She landed with a crunch of glass under her boots on the other side of the bus, glad that the first row was empty and she hadn’t come down upon any bodies. Behind her sat the driver still belted in but with her neck bent to a sharp angle, dead. The next two she came upon, dead and dead, so was the old man, she wondered if he belonged to the old lady outside.

  “Oh no…” she whispered, there was a kid here, not much younger than herself and cute in a dorky way, his blank wide-eyed stare into nothingness meant she had no reason to check his pulse, he gripped tight onto an orange backpack which ruined comics had spilled from, “God this sucks.”

  Claudia knelt next to him and palmed his free hand, though it was lifeless and unresponsive, “Why would you allow this to happen?” she asked the dark sky through broken windows above her, Lightning cracked as if daring her to call him out once again.

  Chapter 20: Party

  The wind had passed, the tornado was gone, and he was under rubble, lots of rubble. James tried to move but there was nowhere to go, he could barely breathe. As he took a burning gasp he realized that this wasn’t just an understatement but an observation, tons of ancient building material was crushing the breath out of him. He could hear sirens, voices, but they all seemed so distant, he tried to call out to them, only managing a mousy squeak.

  His feet where numb, arms unfeeling, James remembered now he
had been hit, and hard, he was probably paralyzed. He wondered if it could be fixed, if he’d end up a paraplegic, or worse, a quad, spoon fed for the rest of his life. Maybe he could get a hottie to spoon feed him, breaking into a half sane grin at the thought of Bettie the typical porn nurse spoon feeding him, her blouse unbuttoned so he could just make out a bit of white lace bra over a handful of cleavage, a skirt so short she was just begging to be played with. James frowned, he didn’t know if a paralyzed man could even get it up, despite his vivid imagination he felt nothing still.

  There was a sound that stopped his heart, all thoughts of lust fled his mind at the rumbling and shifting of stone. He tried to yell again but only squeaked, this time a bit louder. As he listened he realized the sound wasn’t just the building but mechanical, the guttural cough of a Diesel engine, the metallic slap of treads, they were pulling away rubble with something, probably one of those arm claw things attached to the back of a bulldozer, he wasn’t sure what their name was.

  He squeaked again and tried to struggle, not even his shoulders budged. He couldn’t feel a thing other than his face which felt like it had slammed into concrete. James rolled his neck around to eyeball his surroundings, about a foot free of rubble around his head, if anything fell in he’d be dead. Then he eyed a soft white hand under a pile of bricks, on its fourth finger was a ring with a fake jewel in it, he’d called it the Auburn ring the first time he had seen it, having been died such an odd color. He wondered if the waitress that had served his friends hadn’t survived, if the bloodied hand might still be attached to its owner.

  He thought about his friends he had invited to this nightmare and wished with all the will he had left they fared far better than he had.